‘I liked to shoot everything – women, kids… it was kind of sport': Secret Nazi tapes reveal how ordinary German soldiers were responsible for war crimes and not just SS…(History Will Repeat Itself!!!!!)

Secret recordings made by British intelligence during the Second World War have revealed for the first time the horrific atrocities carried out by everyday German soldiers.

For years the blame for horrific war crimes, rape and genocide were laid at the hands of the SS and Hitler’s right hand men but a new book details how widespread the barbarity went.

Transcripts taken from hidden microphones on prisoners of war have been collated for the disturbing book Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing and Dying: The Secret Second World War Tapes of German POWs.

Between 1940 and 1945 the British and Americans bugged about 13,000 German and several hundred Italian soldiers of all ranks and services – many of which in the Trent Park detention centre for POWs in north London.

It was hoped the recordings would reveal military secrets of potentially strategic importance, instead they catalogued open and uncensored conversations about war experiences – often as to boast.